Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1892 — SMOKING IN CHURCH. [ARTICLE]

SMOKING IN CHURCH.

The Weed Used ‘Daring Services by the Pilgrim Fathers. All the Year Round. At one period of its history smoking was so common that it was actually practiced in church. - L Previous to the visit of James I to the University of Cambridge, in 1615, the Vice Chancellor issued a notice to the students which enjoined that “No graduate, scholler or student of this universitie presume to take tobacco in Saint Marie’s church, upon payne of .finall expellinge the universitie.” ■: . ---- - -- -

The Rev. Dr. Parr, when perpetual curate of Hatton. Warwickshire, which living he held from 1783 to 1790, regularly smoked in the vestry while the congregation were singing long hymns, chosen for the purpose, immediately before the sermon. The 'doctor was wont to exclaim: “My people like long hymns, but I prefer along pipe.” The Rev. Robert Hall, of Leicester, the well-known Baptist minister, regularly indulged in smoking during the intervals of divine service. Sir Walter Scott, in his “Heart of Midlothian,” refers to one Duncan, of Knockdunder, an important personage, who smoked during the entire sermon from an iron pipe, tobacco borrowed from other worshipers. We are told that “at the end of the discourse he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, replaced it carefully in his sporran, returned the tobacco pouch to its owner, and joined in the prayer with decency and attention.” The Puritan fathers were greatly addicted to smoking; indeed, the practice became so common that even these straitlacedobservers of times and seasons actually smoked while in church. This custom soon caused very considerable annoyance, as the religious exercises were greatly -dis—turbed by the clinking of flints and steels to light their pipes and the clouds of smoke in church. Hence, in the year 1669, the colony passed this law: “It is enacted that any person oi’ persons that shall be found smoking of tobacco on the Lord’s day, going to or coming from the meetings, within two miles of meeting house, shall pay 12 pence for every such default.” Under this law several persons were actually fined, but the punishment failed to secure the carrying out of the arbitrary second portion of the enactment. The custom of smoking during church service was not confined to the laity and minor clergy, for it is recorded that an Archbishop of York was once reproved by the vicar of St. Mary’s, Nottingham, for attempting to smoke in the church vestry. The Rev. John Disney, of Swinderly, in Lincolnshire, writing on the 13th of December, 1773, to Jas. Grainger, says: “The affair happened in St. Mary’s Church, Nottingham, when Archbishop Blackbourn was there on a visitation. The Archbishop had ordered some of the apparitors or other attendant? to bring him pipes and tobacco and some liquor into the vestry for his refreshment after the fatigue of confirmation. And this coming to Mr. Disney’s ears, he forbade their being brought thither, and with a becoming spirit remonstrated with the Archbishop upon the impropriety of his conduct, at the same time telling his Grace that his vestry should not be converted into a smoking room.” ,